The Horrors of Honda aka What if Kaiba died in Duelist Kingdom?
by Al Evans
Summary: In the world you know Yugi Motou forfeited his match with Seto Kaiba in Duelist Kingdom tournament, fearing victory would spell Kaiba's demise. But in another reality, another world, what if turned out differently...?
1. Prologue

_This story is a 'what if' tale, based upon the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga canon._

* * *

Honda stared the ceiling from the therapist's couch.

"Whenever you're ready Mister Honda."

Honda sighed deeply, bracing himself.

"It all started well over a year ago."

He heard the therapist stifle a small sigh. He could tell it meant she better make herself comfortable.

"My friend Yugi solved the Millennium Puzzle, an ancient artefact found by his grandfather in Egypt. It released this other side of him, who challenged people with darkness in their souls to what he called 'Shadow Games'. Whoever lost a Shadow Game would suffer a 'penalty'. One of those opponents was Seto Kaiba."

"The former golden child of the Kaiba Corporation?" Exclaimed the therapist.

"Yes the very same. After being defeated by Yugi so many times he forced him, me and our friends Jonouchi and Anzu to enter his theme park, Kaiba Land. There, we took part in a series of deadly games called 'Death-T'. In one of these games I was almost killed, but Kaiba's younger brother Mokuba saved me. From then on I felt like I owed him one."

"And how is all this relevant to the tragedy of almost two years ago?"

"Well, after Kaiba lost against Yugi in a round of the popular children's card game 'Duel Monsters', Yugi used the dark powers of his Millennium Puzzle to destroy the evil in Kaiba's heart. But this left him comatose, an empty shell for many months.

When Yugi and Jonouchi competed in the Duelist Kingdom tournament, we all met an imposter of Kaiba who used his Duel Monsters deck. Somehow this seemed to reawaken Kaiba and he made his way to Duelist Kingdom to free his brother. Mokuba had been captured by the host of Duelist Kingdom, Pegasus J. Crawford, as part of a scheme to take over Kaiba Corp.

Kaiba eventually confronted Pegasus only to find he'd removed Mokuba's soul from his body. His only hope of challenging Pegasus was to duel and defeat Yugi in a rematch. Although he tried his hardest Kaiba just couldn't win and when Yugi was one attack away from victory he took…desperate measures...

"Wait, do you mean…that was…"

"Yes. Kaiba was so determined to save his brother he stood on a ledge and threatened to jump if Yugi attacked and won the duel. I think all of us watching could tell Yugi was conflicted. But there was no doubt in my mind, or Anzu's or Jonouchi's, or even our other friend Bakura's that the Yugi we knew could never take a life…but the Yugi we knew wasn't in control."

"I don't understand."

"When I told you the Puzzle unleashed another side of Yugi, I meant it was as though another person stood before us. This 'other Yugi' seemed older, more confident and…more ruthless...

He declared his attack. I was sure, or at least I prayed, that he'd stop short of striking the finishing blow….But he didn't...

As Seto Kaiba's Life points fell to nothing so did he.

The next few moments changed everything."


	2. Hail to the King

_This story is a 'what if' tale, based upon the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga canon._

* * *

The therapist's jaw was agape.

"Yugi Motou murdered Seto Kaiba!"

"Yes. Moments after we heard the sickening thud of Kaiba's body below, the Yugi we knew and loved dropped to his knees in despair.

I think he was in a state of shock. We all were! At the time we consoled Yugi, or tried to anyway. But he couldn't seem to accept what had happened. He didn't say anything for a long while. None of us blamed Yugi. He was trying to save his Grandfather and given our history with Kaiba, none of us thought he'd go through with it. We never realized how much he truly cared about his little brother.

It took some time but we managed to get Yugi to function well enough to enter Pegasus' castle. Jonouchi helped him to prepare for his duel against Mai Kujaku. Jonouchi liked Mai a lot, but first and foremost Yugi was his best friend. Mai was understanding of it, even encouraging, since she wanted to duel Yugi at his best.

Poor Mai. Poor, poor Mai." Honda shook his head sadly.

"Yugi started off badly, I remember thinking it was all over for him. But then, his other, darker side reared its head again. In anger and desperation he used his dark powers to crush her mind, and sent her into a coma, just like he had to Kaiba what seemed like a lifetime ago.

Jonouchi was furious. Friends he and Yugi might've been, but what he'd done went too far. It was at that moment we all realized Yugi might be lost to us.

Yugi and Jonouchi had agreed at the start of the tournament to not duel each other if they both made it to the finals. But now neither one much cared about old promises. Jonouchi tried his best and almost won but Yugi practically taught him everything he knew. Thankfully Yugi didn't hurt Jonouchi. Anzu thought it might've been because there still some of our friend in there somewhere. But it became clear that Yugi just didn't see Jonouchi as worth his time, out duelling him was enough. Especially since by losing Jonouchi had lost his chance to save his sister.

"What do you mean?"

"See Jonouchi's sister needed an expensive operation to save her eyesight. Jonouchi entered the tournament to win the prize money to pay for it. But he failed and Yugi was far from charitable at that point.

He wanted to leave the island right then and there. But Anzu insisted we see the tournament through to the end. So begrudgingly we all watched Yugi duel Pegasus.

Pegasus used the magic of his own Millennium item, the Millennium Eye, to dominate Yugi. I didn't know who to root for. If Pegasus won two innocent souls would be lost forever. But if Yugi won who knew who he'd go on to hurt. For Yugi, _our_ Yugi I should say, no matter what he wouldn't let his grandfather down. He and his darker half formed a tenuous alliance and switched their minds back and forth to confuse Pegasus. Using this technique they won and the dark Yugi insisted Pegasus release the captive souls right then and there. Pegasus was so crushed by his defeat and even intimidated by Yugi's dark half, he agreed. But Yugi gave him a taste of his own medicine. As soon as Pegasus released the souls of Yugi's grandfather and Mokuba Yugi crushed his mind too. Unlike Kaiba he came on even stronger and Pegasus had no hope of recovery.

At this point we thought things couldn't get worse. The damage had been done but at least now it was over. How naive we were." Honda paused. After wiping the tears from his eyes he continued.

"As we left the castle we passed by Yugi from a distance. It was then that Jonouchi noticed Bakura was missing. I think Yugi must've overheard this and re-entered the castle. When we got back inside and found Bakura it was already too late.

Pegasus' eye was bleeding. His Millennium item had been ripped right out of his socket and was gleaming in Bakura's hand. See our friend Bakura had his own dark side too, along with his own Millennium item, the Millennium Ring. We'd all figured he'd gotten past that though. But like so many things, we'd been wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

His Millennium Ring shone bright as ever, almost as bright as Yugi's Puzzle. They were duelling, not a card game, but a battle of minds and magic. Little did we know that however bad Bakura might have been, Yugi was now far worse. Yugi won, Bakura was knocked out, the darkness within him seemingly destroyed. But we'd all thought that before and on that day Bakura had proved us wrong. Now Yugi wasn't taking any more chances. It was one game he didn't want to play anymore. He knew from his own situation that to truly bury the dark spirit within Bakura he had to destroy its vessel forever.

Yugi killed Bakura. He just took the strap of his Millennium Ring and strangled the life out of him.

For me this was the end. Up until then I'd had enough faith in our friendship to truly believe Yugi would never go this far. Yugi had been to save his Grandfather. Bakura never needed to die. He could've saved him somehow, I know for sure. But now he was beyond our help.

I told him straight. Bakura could've gotten better with our help, just like Mokuba had. Killing him was not necessary.

Yugi didn't even respond, he just walked away. We were all too scared to stop him. Too scared to stop the new so called 'King of Games'.


	3. Ishtars

_This story is a 'what if' tale, based upon the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga canon._

* * *

The therapist was shaking. She was horrified by what she was hearing. And yet she yearned to learn more.

"We stuck around when the authorities showed up at last. We told them what we knew but they didn't believe half of it. All they knew was Yugi Motou was wanted for the assault and deaths of four people. I remember Anzu wanted to break the news to Mokuba, but I thought it should be me. I owed him that much. I stayed with him through the trip back home, all the way back to Kaiba Corp tower.

I kept tabs on him after too. Jonouchi helped out, I think he wanted to be useful after letting his sister down so badly. Anzu chipped in as well; she's just that type of person.

Eventually we had to do more. Mokuba told us that with his brother's death, he now owned most of Kaiba Corp, and how the other executives were trying to take him down for complete control of the company.

We didn't know much about business but Yugi's Grandfather Sugoroku did. With his help we all aided Mokuba to get rid of the other executives and even buy Pegasus' company now that it'd fallen on hard times without him. He was so grateful that he asked me to live with him and help run the day to day business. My folks didn't really mind given the money involved.

The first thing we did was erect a giant statue of Kaiba and his favourite card monster, the Blue Eyes White Dragon, all to honour his memory. The second thing we did was pay for Jonouchi's sister's operation.

Things weren't great back then, but they were at least stable.

That was until we read in the news a story about Yugi. Apparently he had gotten into some kind of confrontation with a guy called Ryuji Otogi and his father, who wanted to run his Sugoroku out of business. I guess whatever else Yugi still cared about his Grandfather. Long story short apparently Ryuji's father tried to take Yugi's puzzle but the darkness within the puzzle was so strong his mind broke immediately. Ryuji took this hard and came looking for us, thinking we knew where Yugi was. When he learned we knew nothing he ran off, swearing vengeance.

That was until we were contacted by a woman called Ishizu Ishtar. She told us about these three secret Duel Monsters cards Pegasus had created that were each one of a kind. He called them the 'Egyptian God card monsters'. They were the most powerful cards in the game and, like the Millennium items, held unbelievable magical power.

She explained that her brother Marik had two of these cards and desired the last one too, which was in her possession. She begged us to hold a tournament in Domino City to lure Marik into a trap so she could defeat him and recover the God cards. But she also wanted to lure out Yugi from hiding because she knew that he was a danger out there on his own and an easier target for Marik. Marik hated Yugi due to some crazy family feud or something, I didn't really understand it. All I knew was if Marik got Yugi's puzzle and the God cards it'd be bad news for everyone.

Using Kaiba Corp we organized the tournament and sure enough Marik and his 'Ghouls' goon squad showed up looking for the God Cards. Yugi showed up too, he duelled people covertly and quickly, knowing he was taking a huge risk. But he just couldn't resist a good challenge and our Battle City tournament was the biggest one ever.

Jonouchi competed in the tournament too and so did Mokuba. After we gave him the remains of his brother's deck he modified it and studied the game as much as he could. He got pretty great at it too, I was so proud. He and Jonouchi travelled together and even managed to take down a few Ghouls themselves; all the other ones were picked off by Yugi. I would've felt sorry for them if they weren't such jerks.

There was this one guy though, I never got his name, but he was the creepiest one of them all. He was some kind of bald Goth guy with piercings all over him. He managed to actually beat Yugi with one of the God cads, the Sky Dragon of Osiris. He thought that entitled him to the Puzzle but Yugi just Mind Crushed him and took the God card anyway. Yugi really had changed. As ruthless as his darker side had been he'd always played fair. Now he was not just a sore loser but an outright cheater, with a God card to boot.

After that Marik took drastic measures. He kidnapped Yugi's Grandfather and brainwashed him into challenging Yugi. When we found out about the match we all raced to stop it and save Mister Motou. When we found them Yugi was beyond reasoning. He was so angry about Marik targeting his family he didn't care that in venting his rage he might hurt his own Grandfather. He unleashed his God monster and the sight of it alone caused Mister Motou to have another heart attack. Marik abandoned him when that happened, he was no longer useful. But the sight of his Grandfather like that, and the fact he'd made that happen seemed to shock Yugi. He ran away yelling about how sorry he was.

Anzu was adamant that this was a sign that Yugi was still in there and was now fighting his way back to us. Jonouchi was more pessimistic. Me, I didn't know what to think. But Mokuba? It was all we could do to stop him attacking Yugi right then and there. He swore to take him down in the tournament finals so as soon as we were ready we headed there. To the Battle City finals!


	4. Lesser Evils

_This story is a 'what if' tale, based upon the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga canon._

* * *

The therapist was no longer trying to disguise her rapt interest. On the edge of her seat she urged Honda on in his story.

"But even _I_ heard what happened in the Battle City finals. That must mean..."

"Yes. We'd organized things to take place in one big private stadium. Apart from me, Anzu, the referee and other staff members, no one who wasn't a finalist could enter.

Jonouchi and Mokuba had made it and so had Yugi obviously. Our other friend Hanasaki managed to scrape through too. Then Marik showed up accompanied by his right hand man Rashid and to our surprise Ryuji. Turns out when the Ghouls heard about what happened to Ryuji they recruited him to their ranks; it wasn't a hard sell given how he felt about Yugi. Finally everyone was shocked to see Ishizu appear as a finalist. She swore to save her brother and protect the God cards. Jonouchi, Mokuba and Hanasaki decided to back her up. Marik wasn't worried though, his Winged Dragon of Ra God card was the most powerful of all three God monsters. And Yugi of course had his Puzzle and its dark powers in his corner. All in all it was a three way war.

Ryuji duelled Yugi in the first round and died when he had to face the might of his God card, the Sky Dragon of Osiris. I tried calling for help but Marik had had his goons cut off communications to outside the stadium and had sealed us all in.

Next up Jonouchi duelled Rashid. As it turned out Rashid wasn't all that bad of a guy. He was basically Marik's big brother and was trying to just look out for him and rein him in. Whilst I could relate we all thought Rashid had done a bad job since his baby brother was a criminal.

But when he was accidentally knocked out during his duel with Jonouchi we understood what he meant. Just like Yugi, Marik had a darker side too. But whilst Yugi's darker half was ruthless and driven to win no matter what, Marik's darkside was straight up sadistic and deranged. He really liked hurting people. That's why he didn't kill Hanasaki in their duel, he tortured him until he was brain dead, then used his magic to imprison his mind.

Mokuba and Ishizu went up next. Ishizu was sympathetic to Mokuba but he wasn't so kind. As much as Ishizu tried to play upon his love for Kaiba so he'd understand her love for Marik, Mokuba was too driven by revenge to give in. That's how Ishizu managed to gain the upper hand and summon her God card, the Giant Divine Soldier of Obelisk. She was about to win before this strange look crossed her face and she just surrendered on the spot.

She told us later that she'd surrendered because her own Millennium item, the Millennium Tauk, had revealed the future to her and told her that Mokuba had to continue in the finals if any of us were to have a hope of surviving the tournament.

In the next round of the tournament Marik duelled Jonouchi and did to him what he did to Hanasaki. We were all distraught and I even thought I saw a flicker of concern cross Yugi's face.

In Yugi's match with Mokuba both of them went all out. Mokuba tried to summon Obelisk but Yugi just kept blocking his attempts. In the end though Mokuba did manage to summon the Blue Eyes _Ultimate_ Dragon, the monster his brother had used against Yugi in their last duel. Ironically Yugi managed to weaken it the same way he did against Kaiba, using a monster called the Celtic Guardian. He destroyed it though using his own Osiris God card. Mokuba was defenceless and Yugi had one of the most powerful monsters in the game ready to pounce on him.

Then it happened. Instead of striking Mokuba with his God monster and seriously hurting him, Yugi finished him off with Celtic Guardian and allowed Mokuba to just walk away in defeat. That was when I saw what Anzu had meant. That was when I came to believe Yugi wasn't gone for good.

When it was time for the final round I couldn't remember ever being tenser.

If Yugi won he'd have all three God cards plus his Puzzle and would do who knows what with that terrible power. If Marik won he'd have all that power too but we knew all too well how he wanted to use it.

The duel was a Shadow Game of course, all of Marik's matches were. But in this particular match he'd conjured up his better half as well as nicer Yugi we'd known and loved. He'd rigged the game so that as they each lost life points their lighter sides would disappear into the shadows.

But we weren't going to lose out friend that easily. Jonouchi woke up when our Yugi reappeared and so did Rashid. Everyone was begging Yugi and Marik to reassert control over their darker sides, begging for them to truly look at all the pain and suffering they'd caused.

Finally Yugi broke through and regained control of himself. Marik wasn't so lucky though."


	5. Epilogue

_This story is a 'what if' tale, based upon the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga canon._

* * *

"So after all that it all worked out in the end?" Said the therapist.

"Not exactly, no." Replied Honda

"See Yugi had come back to us, but his darkside was still incredibly strong. Yugi knew someday somehow he'd lose control again and his darkside would wreak havoc once more. With that he used the power of the God cards and his Puzzle to destroy himself, Marik and both of their other halves.

Yugi sacrificed himself to save the whole world from Marik's evil. And his own.

When it was over we balled our eyes out. This time Mokuba was the one who was holding me together. Ishizu and Rashid kept to themselves and just left, none of us had it in us to stop them.

In the months that followed we took turns looking after Yugi's Grandfather. We were just grateful the news hadn't caused him to have another heart attack. He couldn't run his game shop though, he'd lost his drive for that sort of thing. Mokuba invited him to stay at Kaiba Corp where he could be cared for without us worrying.

"And then what happened?"

And then…life just went on. Anzu, Jonouchi and me still saw each other regularly, though Anzu spent more time on her dance lessons than she did before. Jonouchi kept on practicing his duelling skills. He's going to be one of the best of the best. And I kept helping out Mokuba at Kaiba Corp. But I know for all of us there will always be a great big Yugi shaped hole in our lives we're never going to be able to fill. All we can do is be happy that at the end, at the very, very end, he was our Yugi again. Our friend.

The therapist wiped tears from her eyes and composed herself. A minute of two later she began to talk. "I think Honda, that the thing to do is to concentrating on building the future that you want and to let the past, and all its pain, lay in rest with your friend."

"I think your right doctor." Said Honda. "Things are looking good for Kaiba Corp right now. Our profits have increased, we own a monopoly on Duel Monsters and I just hired a great new intern called Miho who's been a great help on my recent projects."

"What sort of projects are you working on right now if I may ask?"

A shrewd look crossed Honda's face. "Well one of them we hope will revolutionize the Duel Monsters game. There are dangers in the R&D stages of the project though, so I hired this tough guy I know called Ushio to test it out for us. Right now the working name for it is 'D-Wheeler'…


End file.
